


let the waters roar, jack

by chuchisushi, jonphaedrus



Series: don't forget your old shipmates [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Consensual Underage Sex, Drinking, Emetophobia, Found Families, Hand Jobs, Height Differences, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smoking, The Outsider is a weird fucking guy, Trust Issues, Unreliable Narrator, fighting as flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8282741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/pseuds/chuchisushi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: He grabs the guy by the back of the shirt and abruptly hauls him out of his chair and the bar goes dead silent. The guy stumbles, too drunk to stand straight, and stares at Daud, who comes up to just below his nose. Daud stares right back up at him, eyebrows raised, and lets go of his shirt. “Come on. We’re going now.”“What are you going to do down there,” the guy says, smirking down at him. He is really tall. “Pinch my nipples?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from [don't forget your old shipmates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY1fUAPYH3M)

“Hey,” Cecelia says, nudging Daud in the shoulder, almost making him drop his soggy cigarette, “There’s a guy in there I need you to get up.”

“You do it,” Daud snaps back, because he’s on his smoke break (which is the same as any other employee’s break, because Samuel is trying to make him quit). “I’m going to sit out here, wet and miserable. You get rid of the guy.”

“He’s like, minimum, six two. Probably six four? He also is shitfaced drunk and his hands are bigger than my face.” Daud looks at her. _Really_ looks at her. “Seriously, I am not joking. Samuel wants him out.”

“I hate you,” Daud replies, drops his cigarette to the wet pavement, grinds it out, fixes his tie, and comes back inside through the back entrance. Inside, near the bar, where Samuel is casually washing cups, there is a guy.

Daud saw him come in earlier—he was sombre and subdued then, but now he’s just facedown at one of the side tables with what looks like four or five empty glasses. “He’s had a gin and tonic, double gin, for every one of them.” Samuel whispers it _sotto voce_ , not looking away from the guy. “He won’t stop crying. Get him out of here and home.”

“Jesus Christ,” Daud says, staring at the guy. He _was_ probably about six four, and looked like someone had given him a double helping of arms and legs to boot. When he had come in, the guy had been about a half a head taller than Daud, and that was _with_ his lifts on. “You need to hire someone tall,” he says, off-hand, to Samuel, and Samuel snorts.

“Or we could just get you taller shoes.”

Daud doesn’t acknowledge that with a reply, just crosses the room, weaving through the patrons either dancing or just hanging out to get to the guy. Leans over, taps him on the shoulder. “Hey,” he says, gruff, and after a moment the guy looks blearily up at him with tired brown eyes. He’d probably be handsome, if he ever slept—instead, he just looks like his face is stretched out twice as long as it should be. “You’re drunk, friend. You need to go home.”

“Fuck off,” says the guy.

Daud looks over at Samuel like _I do not get paid enough for this_. Which he does. But still. Maybe he _should_ invest in some taller lifts.

“Wasn’t a question. Bartender wants you out. Come on.” Daud pulls the guy’s chair back slightly, not touching him at all. “Do you need a hand up?”

“I _need_ another drink. Fuck off.”

“Seriously, you’re going home now.” Daud takes the cups and pushes them to the other side of the table. “Stand up.”

“No.”

That is the point where the guy shoves his hand off the back of the chair, and Daud grits his teeth because the guy has a grip like a vice, he can feel the bones in his wrist creaking dangerously. Daud takes a slow breath. Looks over at Samuel, who nods.

He grabs the guy by the back of the shirt and abruptly _hauls_ him out of his chair and the bar goes dead silent. The guy stumbles, too drunk to stand straight, and stares at Daud, who comes up to just below his nose. Daud stares right back up at him, eyebrows raised, and lets go of his shirt. “Come on. We’re going now.”

“What are you going to do down there,” the guy says, smirking down at him. He is _really_ tall. “Pinch my nipples?”

Ten minutes later, the guy is staggering while Cecelia holds him up as they wait for the ambulance—he’s got a black eye, broken, bleeding nose, definitely a concussion. Daud has a black eye of his own, his jaw fucking _hurts_ , and he’s pretty sure he sprained his wrist.

“You had better apologise to that young man before he sues me,” Samuel says, after they dump the drunk on the EMTs, who ask Daud if he needs anything, but he assures them he’s fine. He’ll go wrap up his wrist and take it easy for a few days and he should be fine—he’s had worse.

“Apologise for what?”

“Well, the broken nose was my first thought.”

Which is all the setup to this: _how do you apologise for breaking a guy’s nose, giving him a concussion, and putting him in the ER_? Well, the answer, according to one Billie Lurk (hyped up on her fifth Shirley Temple of the evening) was a cookie cake. “Say that again?” says the teenage boy with a half a face of pimples as Daud rubs his temple with the hand not currently in a sling.

“I said, can you make it say ‘Sorry I broke your nose, gave you a concussion, and put you in the emergency room.’?”

“I just wanted to make sure, is all.” The kid rubs his nose. Daud scowls. “And you want that on a two foot chocolate chip cake, yeah?”

“Whatever.”

“Do you care what colour the frosting letters are?”

“No?” Daud gives the kid a look. “Just make it...macho? I don’t know.” The kid rubs his nose again and nods.

“Sure, we can do that. Your total is gonna be thirteen dollars and fifty-seven cents.” Daud just hands him his debit card, and takes it back when the kid is done ringing it up. “Should be ready for pickup in half an hour, if you want to come back and get it.”

“Sure,” Daud sighs, and goes to wander the mall for a little while. He gets Billie some weird thing from that bath store she’s obsessed with, and grabs a new phone case, since his last one is cracking, and heads back to pick up the cake after a half an hour, gets it handed to him by the pimply kid.

“There you go. Don’t drop it.” Daud scowls, opens the cake tray, and stares at the giant cookie within. It’s got his requested words on it, written in pastel blue frosting, and perfect super-cutesy cursive. There are hearts dotting the Is. He sighs.

He deserved this.

“Thanks,” Daud manages at last, his voice sour like he just ate a whole fucking lime, and takes the cake back to the bar. That night, when Mister Big and Tall comes back to pick up his tab that he left the night before, Daud awkwardly sets the cake on the counter as he’s talking to Samuel.

“Oh,” Big and Tall says, blinking. The concussion can’t have been that bad, if he’s already up and about. “You’re the bouncer.”

“That’s me,” Daud replies, shoves the cake over. “An apology. Sorry about your face.”

“I started it, it’s not a big deal.” Big and Tall takes the box and eases it open and looks inside. His face is a straight mask, and then after a moment, stumbles into a half smile. He looks up at Daud, eyebrows raised.

“Don’t say anything,” Daud says, and storms off to go do something else.

 

 

Big and Tall keeps coming to the bar, often enough that he starts to be a regular. He only comes on the weekends, and never gets drunk. He usually cuts himself off before he even starts being tipsy. His name is Corvo, and he’s nice enough: he makes friends with Cecelia and Samuel seems to really like him. Billie doesn’t like him, although _why_ Daud isn’t entirely sure—although why Billie does anything, he isn’t entirely sure of either.

Every time he comes, he winks at Daud while Daud checks his ID at the door, and by the end of the first month he’s visited six times in four weekends and Billie sits with Daud after they’re closing up while he’s trying to get his cigarette lit so he can smoke before he gives her a ride home. “He’s flirting with you,” she says, glancing up from her phone. “Like, a lot.”

“Yeah,” Daud replies as he gets his cigarette lit, pockets his lighter, “That’s a thing I’ve discovered that people do if you beat the living daylights out of them.”

Billie narrows her eyes.

“Are you being sarcastic, or what?”

“No, that one was completely serious.” He puffs on the cigarette and watches her poke her virtual cats. “It’s a thing people do.”

“Isn’t that like, BDSM or something?”

“No, just regular old run of the mill being turned on by being scared to shit of somebody.” Billie rolls her eyes.

“No offence, but I’m pretty sure Corvo could like, squash you.” _Corvo_ , Daud privately thinks, is a kind of stupid name. But his name is _Daud_ so he has no room to talk. “I think it has a lot less to do with being scared of you and way more to do with the fact that you look like you’re about to bust out of your shirt if you fold your arms.” Daud glances down at his chest, and scowls.

“I do not.”

“You kinda do.”

“I’m going to wait until we’re over a puddle and then I’m going to shove you off the back of my bike.” Billie quits poking him after that, but Corvo doesn’t, and it’s the next weekend that Daud stops to get some water halfway through the night that the man eyes him up.

“So,” he says, “You’re a member of that gym, the one down by Granny’s place.” Daud looks up from his water, surprised.

“How—“

“Your keychain.” Daud blinks. Right—he has his swipe-in card on his keys. He isn’t sure when Corvo saw them, but whatever.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’ve been thinking of joining a gym.” He’s seen Corvo in just a t-shirt a couple of times now, and Daud has to admit that the guys biceps look like fucking grapefruits, like he gets his exercise jackhammering cars. He _also_ looks like he skips leg day, though, so take from that what you will. “Is it any good?”

“Old fashioned,” Daud decides on eventually after he’s drained his water, and leaves before Corvo can corner him into any more conversation. At about half-past one Corvo comes up to him where he’s standing by the front door, waiting for the last few patrons to leave so they can start closing up. It’s raining again, chilly tonight, and the other man has on a big heavy denim jacket, cut down past his hips. It looks fucking stupid, but warm as hell.

“Can I come with you to the gym sometime?”

“ _When?_ ” Daud replies, not looking Corvo in the face. “I work four to four every night but Tuesday. You’re only ever here on the weekends, and I am not giving up my sleeping time to cart your sorry ass to the gym.”

“I can do Tuesday.” Corvo smiles, and it looks nice on him. Daud wants to punch him (again). “How about after lunch? I’ll get you coffee before we go, my treat. You can show me around the place.”

“Fine,” Daud says, before he can think about it, because the part of him that was on the streets at sixteen never says no to free food. “You know how to get there then?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

 

 

Corvo shows up in a) a wife beater, showing off his really ridiculously broad shoulders and b) tight jeans and c) he has a tattoo of a raven on the back of one bicep, and Daud is just pissed off about the entire thing on principle before they even get into the gym. Once they’re inside and Corvo pushing out his brand-new membership cards, Daud dumps his bag and gets out his hand-wrappings.

“So what do you do here?” Corvo asks, chipper. Daud scowls.

“I punch things.” He has a punching bag, in the back corner. It’s _his_ punching bag, and he will (and has) assert his dominance again if he needs to.

“Don’t you get enough out of that in your job?” Corvo follows him as he scuffs to the back of the room, rolling his shoulders and loosening up his arms.

“As much as you may think that I regularly re-arrange people’s faces with my fists, you were kind of an exception.” Daud grabs the punching bag, pulls it out, and straightens it. “Most people, when faced with a guy with my build, usually just leave.”

“Even though you’re short?”

Daud says nothing, stares Corvo dead in the eyes, and punches the bag so hard that it drops dust and wobbles worryingly on its ropes. Corvo watches him, and raises his eyebrows.

“Is there a boxing ring?”

“Yes.” Neither of them move. Corvo gestures as if to say _after you_ , and Daud knows this is a bad idea. This is a terrible idea, he’s already messed up Corvo’s face once. “I’m not sending you home with scrambled eggs for a face again,” Daud says, at last, and Corvo laughs.

“Last time wasn’t a fair fight. Give me a second chance?”

He shouldn’t. But really, Corvo’s fucking face annoys him, so Daud sighs and leads the way to the boxing ring, ducks under the ropes on the side. Corvo follows him, and it’s pretty empty for mid-day on a Tuesday, so there’s nobody to gawk as Daud strips out of his shirt and out of his sweats to just his bike shorts underneath, finishes wrapping his hands. Corvo follows him and stays just as he is, stretching while Daud does a few squats. They square up, on either side of the mat, and hold very still.

“Are you gonna leave your sneakers on?” Corvo asks, glancing down. Daud doesn’t take his eyes off the other man.”

“You bet your ass I am.” He is _not_ letting Corvo know how short he actually is without his lifts.

“Okay,” Corvo sounds confused, but he still throws the first punch. Daud ducks, comes back with an overdramatic haymaker and instead slaps his other hand open-palmed into Corvo’s stomach when he ducks, making the other man _oof_ in surprise, stumble backwards. Corvo comes back twice as hard, and Daud ducks past his ridiculous spaghetti-armed reach and elbows the other man in the jaw.

Corvo stumbles backwards, rubbing his jaw, and looks up. His brown eyes are hard, and Daud smiles.

Twenty minutes later, Daud is flat on his back with one of Corvo’s legs locked around his own, forearm pinning him over his neck. “Get off,” Daud manages, breathless, and he can feel his eye bruising. He can’t stop smiling with his teeth out—he didn’t expect Corvo to actually be able to _fight_ , but he can. Corvo looks gorgeous with his hair ruined and tangled, with his cheeks flushed and eyes bright. Daud’s possibly starting to get a hard-on.

“You yield?”

“Get _off_ , Corvo.” He pulls back after a moment and Daud sits up, pressing fingers gingerly to his black eye. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Trade secrets. Where’d you learn to do _that_?” Daud doesn’t answer the question, rolls to his feet, grunting as he dusts his hands and ass off.

“Thanks for the fight.” Less spar, more fight, but he needed it. It’s been years since someone actually managed to beat the crap out of him, and it’s good to feel tired and worn out and _happy_. It’s been forever since he was happy.

“You’re welcome?” Corvo follows him out of the ring, and they leave at essentially the same time a few hours later, Corvo going back to a beat-up old black Ford pickup with Disney princess stickers all over the back window, Daud sitting back down on his bike, relaxing as he gets a cigarette out. Corvo chucks his stuff in the cab of his truck and watches him for a moment. “Nice bike.”

“Thanks.” Daud puts his hand on his bike, runs it over the paint. He puts more effort and love into this thing than pretty much anything else he owns. “She’s a good bike.”

“How long have you been driving one?”

Daud puffs a few times, thinking. “About ten years? I’m an adrenalin junkie.” Daud shrugs. “This is a safer way to get my fix than getting into fistfights once a week.”

“Well, I mean,” Corvo smiles as Daud chews on the end of his cigarette, exhaling smoke through his nose, “Now you can fistfight me once a week, too. Best of both worlds, yeah?”

Daud freezes, smoke puffing out of his mouth, and stares at Corvo, who just keeps smiling at him. He doesn’t say anything in response, just finishes his cigarette, dumps it on the ground, squashes it out, puts his helmet on, and drives away.

 

 

The next day, when he shows up for work, Cecelia does a triple take when he walks in the back door, Billie slouching in behind him. “Daud?” She’s horrified, staring at his face, and he looks at her, raises his eyebrows.

“It’s just a black eye. If anything, it’ll be helpful.” Samuel leans around the side of the bar as Billie pushes past him, dumping her backpack behind the bar.

“No. I mean, yeah, but.” Cecelia blinks, and Daud feels like a butterfly pinned to a board as Samuel stares at his face.

“You’re _smiling_ ,” Samuel says at last. Daud feels his face—he is smiling, actually.

“Yeah,” Billie’s sour. “He’s been fucking smiling all day, since yesterday afternoon. It’s creepy as hell. I am genuinely scared that he’s finally cracked and is going to kill us all.”

“Fuck off, Billie,” Daud says, and there is no heat in it at all. Samuel and Cecelia share a look, but get to work like nothing happened, and Daud goes to set up the front of the bar, whistling.

“That’s creepy!” Billie shouts after him. He flips her the finger.

 

 

He starts meeting Corvo every Tuesday to spar. Billie stops making jokes about him smiling, and then two and a half weeks later on a sunny Thursday midafternoon he sees a cop waving him over in his rear-view mirror. Daud pulls over to the side of the road, and takes his helmet off and waits as the officer climbs out, comes over.

“You know your left turn signal is shattered?”

“Huh?” Daud leans over and blinks as he sees that, yes, his turn signal _is_ shattered. There’s glass stuck in the light, and when he flicks the switch nothing blinks. “Shit,” he snarls, and the officer looks amused. “When the hell did that happen?”

“Well, if you hadn’t noticed it, must have been recently.” Daud hasn’t hit _anything_ with his bike in years, so he has no idea when it happened.

“I’m going to kill her,” he whispers, as he realises _why_. Billie had stolen his keys a few nights before—this was the exact kind of thing that she’d do. The cop is looking at him with raised eyebrows behind his sunglasses. “My kid,” Daud clarifies after a moment, and then almost punches himself in the face for the slip.

He is _never_ telling her that he said that.

“Steal your keys?”

“You bet.” The cop laughs.

“My daughter used to do that too. Don’t worry too much—I’m not going to ticket you, but here.” The cop pulls out his wallet and flips through until he pulls out a business card, hands it to Daud, who looks at the front. _The Hound’s Pit_ : it’s a local repair garage that he’s never been to. Daud does almost all his upkeep himself, and usually only goes to garages for his yearly inspections. “They’re good folks over there; they can fix you right up. Tell them Geoff sent you, you’ll get a good deal.”

“Thanks,” Daud manages at last, taking his wallet and putting the card away. “I’ll head right over there, see if I can get it fixed up today.”

“You’ll be in great shape, then.” The cop touches his hat. “Have a good day.”

“You too, officer.” Daud relaxes when the policeman drives off, and scrubs a hand over his face. It’s been six years, and he knows his record is now clean (aside from his prison time) and the cop didn’t actually even get his license plate or write him up, but still. It’s terrifying, being pulled over. He’s never sure he’ll get over it.

He goes straight to the shop, and parks his bike out front, tucks the helmet under his arm and walks inside. It’s nice—smells like new tyres and engine grease, with the vague scent of cigarette smoke. There’s a middle-aged guy, going a little bit to seed, behind the counter, and he looks up when Daud walks in.

“Welcome to the Hound’s Pit, what do you need?”

Daud comes up to the counter, sets down his helmet. “I just got pulled over for a busted turn signal—Geoff said to tell you he sent me.” The guy raises his eyebrows, and leans on the door into the garage proper.

“Hey!” he shouts out the side of his mouth, “Corvo!”

For a single split-second, Daud thinks, maybe there are two people in Dunwall named Corvo. But no—there’s no way that’s true. A moment later, Corvo Attano ducks out from between a couple of cars and comes over. He’s wearing overalls and no shirt, showing off his tan skin slicked with sweat and copious amounts of engine grease, his long hair in a messy puff of a ponytail, a wrench in one hand. He blinks when he sees Daud.

There’s a swipe of black engine grease on one of his knife-sharp cheekbones, and Daud has the sudden desire to lick it. Even though it would taste fucking disgusting.

“Hey,” he says, after a moment.

“Uh,” Daud says. Because he doesn’t know what to say.

“Geoff sent him. You know this guy?” the man behind the counter is seedy, but Corvo seems comfortable enough with him. Daud doesn’t like him on principle—he doesn’t like seedy people.

“Yeah,” Corvo nods. “He’s the bouncer, from a couple months ago.” The guy behind the counter looks at Daud, eyebrows raised.

“He’s shorter than I expected.”

Daud grinds his teeth. Hard.

“Officer Curnow pulled you over?” Corvo diffuses the situation without any more effort than that, and Daud lets out a slow, shaky breath. “What for?”

“Busted turn signal. Think you can fix it?”

“Probably. I might have to replace it, but let me take a look.” As it turns out, after Corvo takes a look at it, he can fix it and has a replacement in the back, so Daud reads crappy waiting room magazines for an hour and a half until Corvo comes and gets him, the light fixed.

Daud pays the guy at the counter, and puts a tip on for Corvo doing it unexpectedly with zero preparation. Afterward, he goes back out to his bike and checks it over himself, then slides his helmet back on.

“Hey, Daud!” he turns around to see Corvo puffing out from the garage, bangs flopping in his face, one shoulder of his overalls sliding down and revealing, for a single moment, a hint of the top of his pecs and the very glimpse of one dusky nipple.

Daud bites his own tongue.

“I have to get up early on Friday, take my daughter down out of the city for a family function. I know you’re usually about to go to bed, but...would you be up to meet for breakfast?” Daud blinks, and hesitates, one hand on his handlebars.

“Daughter?” He manages at last, and Corvo smiles.

“Yeah. Did I not mention her? She’s eleven, Emily. Her mother’s having a big family function Friday night and I have to give her a ride out there. I thought it might be nice to just...see you. Before we go?” Corvo isn’t that much younger than Daud—he doesn’t spend too long considering how he has an eleven year old daughter.

“Sure,” Daud says, before he can think about it any more. “Coffee and bagels?”

“Sounds good. Five am?” Daud nods. That’s usually when he stops to eat something before he goes home, showers, and passes out until at least noon.

“The place by the bar?” It’s less than two blocks away, and Daud is used to going there. Corvo nods.

“I’ll see you then.”

Daud doesn’t think about the fact that he’s meeting the guy he put in the hospital for breakfast with his _kid_. Doesn’t think about it. Just drives home and then lays flat on his couch for a half an hour, and then goes to find Billie and kick her ass and make her pay him back for the bike repairs.

 

 

The next morning Daud is tired and needs a shave when he walks into the bagel place at five. Teague Martin is the behind the counter, looking exhausted and still hungover from whatever stupid thing he did the night before.

“Why the fuck are you here,” Martin snarls, and Daud glares at him.

“To eat a bagel. What else?” Teague steams. “Give me a dozen bagels, cinnamon sugar topping, individually wrapped, toasted. One jalapeño bagel, with lox, cream cheese, and capers. And a double-shot espresso, no foam on top, extra hot.”

“I fucking hate you.”

Daud pauses, and then gestures to Martin’s neck. “I can see your collar.” The bit of a priest’s collar that is visible looks ridiculous against his bagel uniform shirt. Martin grunts and pulls his turtleneck up past it. “Aren’t you not supposed to wear that any more?”

“I’m going to shove my foot so far up your ass, Daud—“

At that moment, the door opens with a tinkling chime, revealing Corvo with a young girl yawning into the back of her hands caught up in his arms, leaning on his shoulder. Corvo brightens immediately, and Martin glowers even more.

“That’ll be twenty-eight dollars and forty-seven cents.” Daud counts it out in bills, and gives him the change in pennies, just to fucking spite Martin, who looks so angry it’s a miracle his teeth don’t shatter from the force he’s exerting on them.

“I hope all your fucking bagels burn,” Martin snarls, and Daud smiles, all teeth.

“If they do you’ll just have to remake them.” Martin clearly wants to bite him, but can’t do much while Daud goes over to meet Corvo. “Is this Emily?” he asks, after a moment, and Corvo nods, his daughter snuffling into his neck. She looks like him—has his coarse, dark hair and his cheekbones, and his broad shoulders, but she’s got Epicanthic folds, and her skin is much smoother than Daud and Corvo’s, who both take after their Greek side, from Serkonos.

“Yeah. She’s not a morning kiddo.” Emily snuffles slightly. “We’ll go grab something.” He leaves to order and Daud sits down, chewing over his thoughts until Corvo comes back with a hot black coffee for himself and a tiny carton of orange juice for Emily, who gets in her own chair and glares at the orange juice. “Do you know the bagel guy?” Daud glances over his shoulder.

“We have...shared history.” Corvo doesn’t know about the jail deal, or what got him in in the first place. Corvo _likes_ him regardless, and he doesn’t want to sour that image with. Well. What he _used_ to do for a living. “Why?”

“Because he’s looking at the back of your head like he could make your skull explode by focused eye hate beams.”

“Yeah,” Daud says after a moment. “He does that.” Their bagels are done before too long, and Martin gives him his bag like it’s full of poison (nothing new) and Daud comes to sit back down with Corvo and his sour morning kid, who is chewing her bagel like it is the most exhausting thing she has ever done, ever, in her entire life.

“Who are all the bagels for?” Corvo gestures with his coffee cup, and Daud looks at the giant bag as he sips his espresso.

“Kids at my apartment complex. A lot of them don’t have steady jobs, so I try to bring them back food when I can.” Not always, but it’s the week between bi-weekly paychecks for most places, so Daud doesn’t feel too bad shelling out the extra for the food.

“That’s nice of you,” Corvo sounds actually surprised, and Daud raises an eyebrow. “Just...not what you come off as, you know?”

“Yeah,” Daud says after a moment. He knows. He wasn’t always like this—eight years ago, it would have been a very different situation. But, he’s changed. He likes to think, for the better. “You’re taking Emily out of town?”

“To Serkonos,” Emily mumbles, blinking sleepily at her orange juice. “Mom’s got a big beach house. There’s some party, my uncle’s going and he said if he had to go I had to go too.”

“Your mom has you on weekends too, don’t forget.” Corvo pushes her bagel closer. “You’re stuck with the party whether you want to or not.”

“Ugh,” Emily replies, putting her face on the table and mashing her cheek into the plastic top. “They’re going to make me wear a nice dress and tight shoes, and not climb anything, and be cutesy and weird people are going to pinch my cheeks like I’m _six_.”

“That’s because adults can’t tell the difference,” Daud says, gruffly, and Emily looks up at him, blinking her big eyes at him. “They just see a kid, and assume that six year olds are like elven year olds. They start noticing when you’re about thirteen.”

“Adults are stupid.” Daud sips his coffee.

“Yup.” He thinks for a moment, sips his coffee, and then grimaces when he realises that he got a fucking double-shot and he’s supposed to be going to sleep. He’s going to regret _this_ when he gets back to his apartment and spends two hours laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to sleep in vain. He did it on muscle memory; like an idiot. “Well, you’re pretty tall, for an eleven year old.” She takes after her father, clearly—if Daud wasn’t in his lifts she’d probably be close to his shoulder standing. “Pinch their cheeks back.”

Her eyes get very big and very bright.

“I can— _do_ that?”

“You _shouldn’t_ ,” Daud corrects, sipping his coffee. “But you _can_.” She looks at Corvo, who is staring at Daud helplessly like he’s just opened Pandora’s Box.

“Your mom is going to kill me. Like, I’m actually dead. Thanks, Daud.”

He takes a drink to hide his smile. “You’re welcome.” The rest of breakfast passes like that—Emily is a cute kid, for all that she’s a preteen monster, and as she wakes up more Daud finds he likes her, which is unusual for him with actual kids. He likes teenagers, but has never been good with them before they’re about fifteen—but Emily is bright, and funny, and clearly has never been around someone as irreverent as he is. They part ways at about six thirty, Corvo grabbing his daughter, and Daud goes home, mulling over things.

When he gets back to the apartment complex and knocks on Billie’s door to give her the bagels, she opens it, her hair still knotted up in a bun from sleep, frizzing before she’s had a chance to straighten it. Her brown eyes are bright.

“Daud!” She’s out of breath, and shoves a paper in his face, almost making him spill near-boiling coffee down his shirt. “Look!” She waves the paper wildly. “Look, Daud!”

“Quit shoving it up my nostrils and I will.” She’s practically about to vibrate out of her skin, and he hands over the bag of bagels. “For the Whalers,” she takes them without thanking him, grabs out a bagel, puts half of it in her mouth in a single bite, and with his hand free, he takes the paper.

It’s a letter, printed on embossed cardstock. It invites one Billie Lurk to the University of Serkonos, with a full scholarship. He looks up at her after a moment, and Billie is smiling like a dumb kid around her bagel.

“C’mere,” Daud says, and grabs the teenager in a headlock, Billie laughing stupidly as he hugs her, nose shoved into her hair. “When’d it get here?”

“Just before you did.” She’s getting crumbs and bagel stains on his work shirt, but he can’t blame her too much.

“Congratulations.” It was her top choice—he’s happy for her, glad she got to go learn when he never did. Daud squeezes her shoulder, lets her go. She takes the letter back and holds it like if she wrinkles the paper it won’t be true any more.

“Accepted students weekend is next week. Can we go?” Daud grunts, which is a yes, and she whoops. “I’m gonna go to _college!_ ”

“You bet your ass you are,” Daud says, and he is smiling now, stupidly. “You sure are.”

 

 

 

That following Tuesday, Daud knocks on the landlord’s door right after he eats dinner, and it opens inward a moment later to reveal the man himself, ducking to keep his entire body visible. Their landlord is fucking _weird_ , and he’s no less weird than usual tonight—he’s wearing a horrendously ugly crushed velvet smoking jacket with stylised paisley whales on it, curlers in his hair, and a glass of wine in one hand. He leans seductively against the door, or whatever passes as seductively when you’re in a crushed velvet smoking jacket with paisley whales on it. He smells very, very strongly of cloves and fish, like he always does, and as always, it is _disgusting_.

He’s wearing slippers shaped like whales.

“Your slippers are new,” Daud says, like that’s the weirdest thing going on right now. The landlord looks down and raises his eyebrows. Daud’s less weirded out by the whale thing, and more that they are _neon blue_ , so bright he’s surprised they aren’t actually lit from within.

“Oh, my niece got them for me for my birthday!” He raises one foot and waggles it. “Aren’t they precious?”

Daud does not deign to acknowledge with that a response, and just sticks out two checks.

“Rent, for my apartment, and Billie as well for this month. We’re going to be in Serkonos doing a school visit on due day.” The landlord takes them and tucks them in one pocket, and lounges against the doorframe while Daud gets out a cigarette and lights it, leans against his wall for a moment. He doesn’t _dislike_ Octavius Kaldwin, he’s just a) fucking weird and b) things have been awkward since that one time Daud had to pay him rent in sex. They get along, and hang out occasionally. The man has been more than generous to the Whalers, and for all his eccentricities, he’s a good man. Deep down.

Daud takes a few puffs, before Octavius comes out with “You going to visit your mother’s grave?” and Daud bites down so hard on the end of his cigarette he breaks it in half and coughs as he spits both halves out, crushes the tip to cinders with the toe of his shoe and glowers at the other man, who shrugs. “Just wondering, Daud.”

That is the other reason Daud doesn’t like him all that much: the man has a habit of knowing way, way more about _everything_ than he by rights should.

“Yeah,” he says at last, fishing out a second cigarette and trying again. He could swear that Octavius planned this—he’s part of the not-so-secret cabal that are trying to get Daud to quit smoking, and that’s one cigarette out of his one pack every two weeks he just fucking wasted. “I want to introduce her to Billie.” He keeps meaning to, and it keeps not happening.

“She’s a nice young lady,” Octavius says, and Daud grunts his affirmation, lights his cigarette, and puffs contentedly on it as they stand there, in companionable silence. “You’ve been happier lately,” he finally broaches the topic he’s clearly not wanting to touch, and Daud sighs, flicks his cigarette ash onto the cement floor.

“You and everyone else keep telling me that.”

“It’s nice,” says the weird landlord. Then, before Daud can stop him, he darts forward and slaps two quick stamps onto his left hand—two whales. “And that’s your reward on the rent.”

Daud doesn’t tell him how weird he is, just shakes his head and sighs.

 

 

The trip is fun, and Daud only gets called Billie’s dad twice. He isn’t sure how so many people think he’s that old—he’s thirty-three in the summer, not _ancient_ —but apparently he passes for a guy minimum in his forties, so, whatever. She’s dazzled every moment they’re on the campus, and it’s nice to visit his mother’s grave now he’s at a place he feels better in his life.

A couple of weeks after they get back, Daud is preparing to head to work when his cell phone rings, with a number he doesn’t recognise. Not actually all that weird, considering he’s the local way-station for about two dozen teenagers, so he answers—

And Corvo’s voice comes out at him.

“Daud?”

“Wh—How did you get my number?” Daud stumbles. He keeps meaning to give it to the other man: they’re going to the gym twice a week together, and getting lunch afterward. Billie had cornered him while they had been at the graveyard, and he’d had to admit that he and Corvo were, sort of, dating. And that was before they started doing the lunch thing, and Daud started considering possibly kissing him, instead of just beating the crap out of each other twice a week.

“Samuel gave it to me,” Corvo replies.

Daud’s going to kill him.

“Listen, I need a favour.”

“Is it illegal?”

“What? No.” Corvo splutters down the line. “No, just. Havelock needs me to stay late, he’s got some business stuff to talk over, and I don’t want Emily to have to go home with her uncle, because she always comes back kinda weird after. Can you pick her up for me, take her to the bar? I’ll swing by to get her before opening.”

“Uh,” Daud isn’t sure how to handle being trusted with the care of a small human that isn’t an orphan or a runaway. “Sure. Don’t I need your permission for that?”

“Oh, shit.” There’s the sound of something fumbling. “I’ll call her teacher.”

Which is, long story short, how Daud ends up pulling up to an elementary school at three in the afternoon, parks his bike, and goes inside. He feels tremendously out of place with the parents leaving with their kids, normal happy families. Daud’s dressed for work in his bouncer clothes, with his squashed-in face and eye scar, and people stare at him. He regrets wearing a shirt that shrunk a little in the wash.

He checks his texts to see the classroom that Corvo told him to go to, and gets there only to see...it’s empty, but for a young woman, who looks up when he glances in. There’s paper flowers pasted to the door, and cut-out letters that look like pretzels spell out _Ms. Curnow_ , a name he recognises, but he can’t place where.

“Are you Daud?” She asks and he nods, awkwardly.

“I’m looking for Emily Attano?”

“She’s gone to sit in her uncle’s classroom, she wasn’t sure when you would get here.” She comes over and points down the hallway behind him. “Go back the way you came, and take the second left. It’s the first room.” Daud nods and leaves, palms sweaty and itchy by the time he gets to the second classroom.

The door is shut, and he pushes it open into a room decorated like it’s underwater, with the glare of the fluorescents softened by blue tissue paper crammed in under the covers. There’s a corner of the room with big bean bags that are shaped like underwater flora and fauna, where Emily is flopped, and at the front of the room, erasing the board—

“You teach _elementary school?_ ” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it, and Daud’s weird fucking landlord turns around, black eyebrows imperiously arched.

“Yes?” His wall, above his desk, has a big stencil of a whale with _Mr. Kaldwin_ written in it, and then Daud looks toward Emily, who is already scrambling up, getting her lunch box.

“You’re Emily’s uncle?”

“Did Corvo not mention it?” Octavius leans against his chalkboard. “I offered to bring her back to my place, or drop her off with you, but he said he’d already called you.”

“Hi, Daud!” He is spared from having to come up with a response by Emily tackling him around the waist, knocking the breath out of him for a second. “Do you know Uncle Oc?”

Daud opens his mouth, and then clicks it shut immediately when he realises he was about to say _yeah we fucked once for rent_ and then clears his throat. “He’s my landlord. Didn’t realise you two were related.” Emily nods, and Octavius bows from the waist.

“Yes, she is my darling niece. She gave me those lovely whale slippers I showed you the other day.” He dusts off his hands. “Shoo, Emily. I have a staff meeting.”

“Come on!” She bounds out of the room and Daud leaves after her, infinitely more confused than when he walked into the building. When they get out to his bike, Emily stares at it with really big eyes, mouth slightly open. Daud steps past her and opens the seat, gestures for her to dump her lunchbox and backpack into the space for cargo. “You have a _motorcycle_?” Emily whispers at last, putting her stuff in, still in awe, as Daud hands her the extra helmet and flips his on, grunts in affirmation. “My dad said we can literally never, ever have a motorcycle.”

“I’m not your dad,” Daud replies, and sits down, pushing up the kickstand. He’s going to drive doubly safe with this girl on—safer than he does even when riding with Billie. “Hop on behind me, wrap your arms around my waist.” Emily does so, and crams up next to him—she’s tall for her age, but skinny, and her arms aren’t tight enough around his waist, so he nudges them. “You have to move a lot more on a bike, so move with me. We’ll lean on turns, and keep your feet on the pegs—see them on the sides? Then hang on tight, and don’t wiggle much, or at all.”

“Right.” Emily nods against his back, her helmet banging into his shoulderblades, and Daud kicks the bike up into gear, idles for a few moments so she can get used to it, and then starts driving. By the time they get to the bar and he parks and let’s Emily get off, she’s practically vibrating out of her skin, and takes her backpack and lunchbox and _bounces_ into the bar.

Daud follows her, tucking his keys away, and shuts the back door behind him. “Well hello,” Samuel says, looking at Emily and then at Daud. “You’re Corvo’s daughter, aren’t you? Emily, right?”

“Yep!” Emily scrambles up onto one of the bar stools. “My dad had a thing at work, so Daud picked me up. He has a _motorcycle_ , did you know that?” Samuel nods.

“I sure did. You have fun riding it?”

Emily’s eyes sparkle.

“It was the _coolest thing ever_.”

Corvo shows up about an hour and a half later, just after the bar has opened, and Daud waves him through, leans on the inside of the front door. There’s nobody there yet, although people will be showing up soon for happy hour, and Corvo goes over to the counter, ruffles Emily’s hair.

“Thanks for picking her up,” he says to Daud, and Daud shrugs.

“Anytime. Just call me if you need me to.” Emily has hopped up onto the bar itself, and is sipping her third Shirley Temple of the night, courtesy of Billie. “She cause you any trouble?” he asks this of Samuel, who shakes his head.

“Not in the slightest. Good kid.”

“Billie is _so_ cool,” Emily puts in, sipping her drink. “She helped me with my math homework. And gave me peanuts.”

“How much do I owe you for the peanuts and the drinks?” Corvo asks, fishing in his wallet, and Samuel waves a hand.

“On the house. Don’t worry about it, Corvo.” He relaxes slightly. “You bring her by again, you hear? Been a while since we had any cute kids around here.” Billie opens her mouth, and Samuel says, “Billie, you don’t count.” She’s been working as a bartender since she was sixteen, but they all pretend she’s older. “See you this weekend?”

“Yep.” Corvo comes back to the front door, Emily finishing her drink and packing up, following after him. He and Daud stand next to each other for a moment, and Daud stares up at Corvo for a long time while Emily continues fussing in the background.

“Thanks,” Corvo says, at last. “Really. I know it was out of the blue and you didn’t know I had your phone number—“

“I was planning on giving it to you anyway,” Daud admits, leaning against the doorjamb, looking up at Corvo. “Samuel just beat me to it, I guess.” Corvo leans next to him, one hand on the doorframe over his shoulder. “She’s a good kid. Sorry if she never shuts up about motorcycles again.”

“She rode fine?”

“No issues at all.” They’re both quiet for a long time, and Daud looks over—Emily is still glued to Billie. “You didn’t tell me Octavius Kaldwin is her uncle.”

“You know him?” Corvo looks surprised, eyebrows raised, and Daud makes a face like he’s just sucked on a lemon.

“Landlord. Weird fucking guy.”

“You can say that again.” They’re both quiet, and it’s a little awkward because Emily won’t leave Billie and Samuel, and there’s nobody at the door so Daud has nothing to actually do. “Do you want to uh...maybe, go out to dinner? Tuesday? With me and Emily?” Daud doesn’t know what to say, and they move apart when Emily comes between them, hopping out to the sidewalk in front of the bar. Corvo is still leaning over his shoulder, and this close, he smells like engine grease and almond shampoo.

“Why not,” Daud says at last, and then Corvo kisses him.

 

 

“So,” Billie corners him Saturday morning (or what passes for Saturday morning for them) working on the underside of his bike. “Are you and Corvo like, for real dating, or something now?”

Daud throws a screwdriver at her head.

 

 

Saturday night, after he gets home, Daud jerks his apartment door open to the landlord leaning against the doorframe, ducking to keep his entire body visible in the door. “My sister tells me you kissed her baby daddy. Billie confirms the rumour. Are you and my brother in law dating?”

Daud slams the door in Octavius’ face.

 

 

Sunday packing up, Cecelia elbows him. “I know you and Corvo have been dancing around each other for a while, so is this like, official?”

Daud dumps ice down the back of her shirt.

 

 

Monday, at closing time, Samuel hands him a condom and is clearly barely able to keep a smile off his face. “Safe, sane, consensual,” says the bartender.

Daud steps, hard, on his toe. What he _really_ wants to do is punch him.

 

 

He doesn’t go to the gym on Tuesday, just smokes half his bi-weekly pack of cigarettes and takes a really fucking long shower before he slinks unhappily out of his house to the restaurant they’re meeting at for dinner. It’s a sports bar, run by a couple of twins who used to be big names in baseball, and Daud finds Corvo waiting with Emily by the front counter.

“Hey,” Corvo says, awkwardly. Emily beams. They get taken to a booth, and Corvo excuses himself almost immediately to run to the bathroom. Once he’s gone, Emily flops her arms over the table and stares at Daud.

“So,” she says, imperiously.

Daud raises his eyebrows.

“Are you and my dad dating?”

Daud freezes—this is one question he can’t avoid, not from Emily. He hesitates and then shrugs.

“I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“Well,” Emily sits up and sips thoughtfully from her Sprite through the straw. “The only person he’s dated since he and Mom broke up is Uncle Oc, and that was pretty cool? But you’re cooler than he is; he doesn’t have a motorcycle.” Daud catches himself staring at Emily like she’s just grown a second head—Corvo and his landlord _dated_?

Oh god, they’ve both had sex with the man.

“Thank you?” He manages at last. Emily nods, decisively.

“That was a compliment. You make him happy, and Billie says my Dad makes you smile, even if it does make your face look kinda funny. So I’m okay with it, but you should actually talk to him about it.” Daud doesn’t admit that he’s not entirely sure he’s ready to date _anybody_ , let alone Corvo Attano. Emily sips her Sprite. “So, how’d you get the scar on your face?”

Kids—they change gears in seconds. But, much like dating Corvo Attano, Daud isn’t so sure this is a story he wants to tell her either.

“Secret,” Daud replies, instead, and Emily’s eyes get huge.

Corvo comes back before too much longer, and dinner is actually pretty pleasant. Afterward, they stand in front of the restaurant and he itches for a cigarette, but keeps from smoking in front of Emily, especially after going through half his pack earlier.

“Do you want to come back to my place?” Corvo asks, at last. Daud nods, before he can stop himself, and follows the other man across town, parks his bike in front of a small house with a well-kept lawn, walks after Corvo and Emily inside.

“Shoes off in the house!” Emily says, disapproving, as Daud walks in over the front mat, and Daud catches himself. Right—Chinese no-shoes thing. Culture.

“Uh,” Daud says.

And takes off his shoes.

Emily and Corvo are long gone to the kitchen, and Daud follows them in awkwardly, hands in his pockets, leans against the counter and watches Corvo start packing a lunch brusquely, for Emily the following day. Corvo looks up after a moment, smiles.

“You want something to drink?”

“Just water,” Daud replies, and then Corvo pauses, stares at him.

“Did you just...get...shorter?”

Daud gives him a look that could melt lead.

Corvo slowly turns back to the lunch, like nothing ever happened. Emily squints at him, and they continue like that until Emily has to go to bed, and then Daud and Corvo crack a couple of beers open, settle in on the couch, Corvo stretching out his really, ridiculously long legs.

“You’re good with kids,” Corvo says, at last. “I wasn’t really expecting that.” Daud shrugs.

“I like kids. You can trust them. They just say what they’re thinking, even if it’s not something they _should_ say.”

“Is Billie your...adopted daughter?” Corvo sounds hesitant, and Daud shrugs awkwardly.

“Something like that.” He sips his beer, relaxes a little more. “We met when we were both at bad points in our lives, been there for each other since. She’s a good kid—I’m proud of her.” Corvo looks curious, but doesn’t push him on it. “So, you used to date whale-guy?”

“Yeah, for a couple of years, after Jessamine and I were over. Octavius is nice, and loves kids, but he’s aroace. I wanted to find someone I could stay with forever, and he wasn’t it. Not, at least, in terms of what I was looking for. I need romance, and while the sex was all right, he’s not really an I-love-you kind of guy.”

“I slept with him one time,” Daud admits after a moment. “He’s weird.”

“You’re telling me. I owe him, though. He did a solid favour for me, right after Emily was born, so he’s a good guy, if just...strange.” Daud looks at Corvo.

“Is his sister that weird?” Corvo shakes his head immediately.

“No, Jessamine is like, an actual human being. Not a weird demented spider-guy obsessed with whales who never sleeps. She’s still got the...” Corvo gestures. “The whole vibe of she could kill you in your sleep going, though.”

Daud drinks his beer, and nods. He knows _exactly_ what Corvo means.

“So how’d you get your scar?” Corvo asks after another lull, and Daud sighs, his shoulders tight.

“Your daughter asked me the same thing at dinner, when you were in the bathroom.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“That it was a secret.” Daud looks to Corvo, who is watching him, carefully.

“What are you going to tell me?”

“A guy shivved me in the face with a sharpened quarter when I was in prison. I didn’t really...think. Emily needed to know that.” Corvo hesitates, and then sighs.

“Probably not. Did it get infected?”

“No, I was lucky.” Daud finishes off his beer, curls his toes into Corvo’s living room shag rug. Leans back against the couch. “It was right before I got out.”

“What were you in for, if you don’t mind my asking?” Daud laughs, sour. It hurts. “I’m guessing you mind.”

“It’s a part of my life I don’t really like thinking back on,” Daud explains, rather than let Corvo mull. “I have to tell you, especially if we’re...” he gestures, like that gets across the state of things. “Besides, you’re practically a part of the local family, at this point. You deserve to know—everyone else does.”

“Let me get you another beer,” Corvo says, instead of pushing him, and Daud is infinitely grateful. He waits until Corvo comes back and drinks half of it, and relaxes, tries to think about how best to launch into this.

“Are you from Dunwall?” He doesn’t think Corvo is, not when he’s clearly as Greek as he is, given Serkonos’ thriving Greek immigrant community. But still, it’s worth asking.

“No, Serkonos—I moved up here when I graduated from high school.”

“Same. My mother died when I was fourteen, and I came here because I figured I’d have better luck on my own in the city.”

“I know saying I’m sorry does nothing, but...I am sorry. That’s too young to be alone.” Daud nods, mutely—it’s not pity on Corvo’s part, so he doesn’t feel annoyed at the platitude. It’s honest-to-goodness just sorrow that Daud lost his mother when he was barely even a teenager.

“You can guess how it went.” Daud mumbles into the mouth of his beer. “I was on the streets, and before long that turned to pick-pocketing, and then shoplifting, and then I got picked up by a gang. It gave me a home, somewhere I could feel safe, a network. I got off the streets, but started doing things a _lot_ worse than stealing.” Daud stares resolutely at the wall. Takes a deep breath. “Have you ever heard of the Knife of Dunwall?” He asks, and the name makes him want to throw up.

“Uh,” Corvo says, thinking. “Wasn’t that...a serial killer? A couple of years back? That was just after Emily was born; didn’t they end up catching the guy and putting him in jail?”

“I’m the Knife of Dunwall.” Daud says.

Corvo chokes on his beer.

Daud grunts and stretches an arm out, pounds the younger man on the back for a solid minute or two until Corvo’s done coughing beer out his nose, and he wipes his now-damp face on his sleeve, stares at Daud. He knows Daud well enough to know he isn’t joking, but Corvo still blinks in stunned astonishment.

“Really?” He says at last, and Daud nods, rubs the back of his neck.

“I was good at killing people,” he says at last, shrugging one shoulder. “So Burrows put me to work. I was in jail for two years, while they tried to work out just how long my sentence was actually going to be.”

“Wasn’t it life?” Daud doesn’t respond, for a long moment.

“I put Hiram Burrows in jail for life,” he says instead, staring at the wall. Burrows—fucking _Burrows_. He’d been Mayor of Dunwall four times, and he’d run one of the biggest syndicated crime families in the entire _state_ during all of them. He’d covered his tracks so well, he might never have been caught. Certainly nobody had cottoned onto the idea that their Mayor was the one ordering killings left and right. “I took a plea bargain, ratted out probably all but five or six people in the family, gave the DA so much information that they let me out after two years, given that I don’t ever want to fucking kill anyone, _ever_ again.”

Daud can’t hold a gun any more. Hell—he can barely hold a fucking razor. He shaves with an electric razor, and avoids it as much as possible. The most lethal thing in his apartment is _him._ He still has nightmares.

Who puts a sixteen year-old kid to work killing people?

“I got out six years ago. Samuel gave me a job to keep me from having to put my name out; the authorities put me into contact with Octavius because he rents off the grid.” See Exhibit A: Octavius Kaldwin is fucking weird. “I probably would have ended up back in jail if I hadn’t met Billie. She was homeless, and tried to pickpocket me. I couldn’t bear to see another kid go down the same path I did—watch their lives fall apart in front of them, destroy all their prospects. Caring for her, taking care of her, is what helped me get my life back on track.” Daud finishes his beer, and sets it on the coffee table, leans forward, runs his fingers through his short hair, presses his palms into his eyes.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Corvo asks, and Daud shrugs his shoulders, hunching down further into his hands.

“You kissed me. You asked me out to dinner. Are we dating, Corvo?” He sits up, looks over at the younger man, who looks _intensely_ awkward.

“Well,” Corvo begins, “Uh. I mean. I was,” he scratches the back of his neck. “I was kind of thinking, that maybe, we could.” Daud glares at him until Corvo makes a face and shrugs helplessly. “You’re cute, and you can beat the shit out of me,” he manages at last. “I didn’t think much further than that.”

“If we’re dating I don’t want you to go into it with anything left unsaid,” Daud replies. “I know Emily comes first to you, and rightly so—I’m not exactly safe to be around, even now, because people like Teague Martin still want to castrate me and then choke me to death with my removed balls. Better you know before you get any more invested.”

Corvo shoves him, gently, but still does. “Has anyone ever told you you’ve got your head up your ass?”

Daud hesitates. He doesn’t need to answer that, not really—Billie tells him on a pretty regular basis.

“Look,” Corvo softens. “I’m not exactly a clean slate either, all right? I didn’t kill anyone, but I owe Octavius Kaldwin a pretty fucking big life debt.”

“You _dated_ him.”

“That’s not why.” Corvo looks off, in the direction of Emily’s room. “You’ve probably figured that I was young when Emily was born—I was nineteen, Jessamine was seventeen. She was always the wild child of the Kaldwin siblings,” he hesitates and raises his eyebrows. “Not that you’d ever know that, seeing her brother. She and I met when we were both in the punk scene, got drunk, were dumb, she got pregnant. She was sixteen, I was nineteen, her parents brought the house down. Slapped me with statutory rape charges, I ended up in jail for three months after they hung the jury—I was sentenced to five years, no parole, with the rest of my life on the sexual predator list. Octavius twisted a _lot_ of arms to get me out, get the charges dropped and taken off my record.” Corvo finishes his beer, leans back into the couch.

“It’s not the same by a long shot,” he admits, softer, “But look, you can’t just spend the rest of your life assuming everyone around you is a saint, and destroy yourself so you won’t hurt anyone else.”

“They _hung the jury_?” That’s what Daud is still stuck on, blinking at Corvo, who gives him his best smile.

“Her parents were _really_ furious. They haven’t spoken to me since. They probably wouldn’t have taken Jessamine back, if Octavius hadn’t immediately gone and ruined his reputation and made himself the family black sheep by banging me immediately after I got out of prison.”

Daud raises his eyebrows.

The Kaldwins, he is learning, are a hot fucking mess.

“Still want to date a sexual offender?” Corvo asks, spreading his arms wide. Daud, staring at this guy in his slightly too-tight shirt and his long hair, with his stupid grin, this guy who Daud is starting to get would literally jump off of a bridge if his daughter asked him too—it’s too much. He breaks down laughing, head hung between his shoulders, rubbing his chin one-handed.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he manages instead, half-laughing, unable to get the words out. Corvo laughs with him, and for the first time in a long time he thinks, _this might work out._

 

 

Three weeks later, Daud asks Samuel for Sunday off, and the bartender stares at him intently.

“Emily goes with her mother on weekends,” he says at last, and Daud pretends he didn’t hear it.

Sunday night comes, and after dinner together Daud and Corvo go back to his apartment, and end up in bed together, Daud struggling to get his shirt off—he’s put on weight recently, and his clothes are starting to be a tad too tight in the stomach and chest. Not that he’s going to complain about it. As it turns out, Corvo is all muscle under his clothes, muscle and long legs, and the only problem they run into is that Daud is exactly the wrong height for their bodies to fit together well.

“Why are you so short?” Corvo asks, as Daud wiggles slightly, shifting to get his legs around the younger man’s waist.

“I’m not short,” Daud snaps back, even though he is two inches under average, “You’re just a fucking tree.” Corvo doesn’t get the dubious honour of the tallest man Daud’s ever had sex with, but only because Octavius Kaldwin is actually a giant.

Halfway through what might be some of the best sex Daud’s ever had, his hand around both their dicks, pleasantly surprised by the fact that Corvo’s got a motor-mouth in bed and can’t stop moaning, there’s a series of loud thumps on the wall and they both freeze, Corvo panting wetly into the curve of his neck.

“Daud!” Billie’s voice is muffled by the wall, “Some of us have school tomorrow!”

Daud groans and thumps his head into the pillow. He deserves this, he supposes, for the number of times he’s done the same thing to Billie for having a party and complained that he’s too old to listen to their thumping bass.

“Fuck off!” He shouts back, and he and Corvo devolve into muffled laughter, and it’s good anyway.

 

 

As it turns out, the conversation that Corvo had stayed late to have with Havelock was about the fact that Havelock had mismanaged the Hound’s Pit into a bankrupt hole and was going to sell it—only Corvo (with a little bit of help from Daud’s landlord, of all people) had bought it out from under him.

At Corvo’s request, Daud starts picking Emily up from school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—the days where Corvo stays late, remodelling the garage, fixing it up for a grand re-opening in the summer. Tuesdays, Emily comes back to his apartment and she and Billie spend the evening doing whatever it is teenagers do, and Mondays and Wednesdays she does homework at the bar. Some Tuesdays, Octavius comes by and takes up hanging out in Daud’s apartment, until it ends up crammed full of half the people Daud knows, Whalers coming by to see the landlord and the cute kid Daud’s somehow ended up caring for half-time.

After two months of this, they’re sitting on Corvo’s back porch, Emily perched in one of the trees, reading, while Corvo is checking his email on his laptop and Daud smokes. “I have to go out of town next week,” he says, abruptly. Corvo looks up. “Just for a couple of days. I’ll be gone most of the week. I won’t be able to pick Emily up.”

“That’s fine.” Corvo is watching him, although Daud doesn’t look back. He just smokes, his face tight. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Daud says, brusque. “I have to visit someone, that’s all.” Corvo clearly doesn’t believe him, but lets it go. Daud is glad—he isn’t fine, but no amount of talking about it will ever make him fine.

 

 

It’s a two-day drive to Coldridge Prison, and Daud makes it in silence, his fingers white-knuckled on this bike handlebars. When he gets there, they let him into the visitor area and he sits down in front of one of the windows, starts playing with a loose thread on his shirt cuff.

The door on the other side of the glass hisses open, the pneumatics unsealing. The corrections officers walk Hiram Burrows in, and shove him into the chair on the other slide of the glass a little rougher than is necessary. Hiram smiles at him, the expression not reaching his eyes. Daud wants to punch him.

“And here I was, thinking maybe this was the year you wouldn’t come,” Hiram leans on the counter. “Happy Birthday, Daud.” He doesn’t reply, just watches the older man’s face as he settles back into his chair. “Teague called a few weeks ago; said that you’ve been out with Jessamine Kaldwin’s bastard daughter. That true?”

Daud doesn’t respond to that either. He long ago learned that the best way to deal with Hiram is to just not respond to anything he says.

“I remember when that girl was born...wasn’t long before you got caught. Wasn’t her father thrown in jail for statutory rape? Seems to me that was one of Octavius Kaldwin’s _many_ charity cases before he vanished off the map.” Daud just watches Hiram, dead-eyed. Lets him talk. “You and a paedophile...seems a kind of poetic justice.”

“Are you done?” Daud says at last, tiredly. Hiram smiles, all teeth.

“Why do you keep coming back, Daud?” This is about the extent of their yearly conversations. Daud can never bear to stay longer than maybe ten minutes before he wants to get his hands around Hiram’s neck. “Sick penance?”

“A man should face his mistakes,” Daud snarls, and Hiram laughs.

He leaves, and sitting on the kerb next to his bike, Daud chain-smokes three cigarettes, his hands shaking, and then throws up in the bushes.

He drives home, and hates himself for every minute of it.

 

 

Corvo lets Daud borrow his pickup truck for when Billie is ready to move down to Serkonos for orientation, and the three of them load it up with everything, tying it all down when they’re done. August is warm this year in Dunwall, and by the end of it Daud has stripped out of his shirt and is flopped on the grass by the apartment building, Billie panting next to him.

“I really hope I’m on the first floor of the dorm,” Billie says, and Daud groans. The thought of getting her mini-fridge up any flights of stairs is a _nightmare_.

Corvo is standing by the pickup, drinking out of his water bottle, and watching the horizon, the wind blowing his hair away from his face. Daud sits up after a long moment, wiping sweat off his brow. Corvo, as if he can feel Daud watching him, looks over and smiles. In this light, Daud can see the grey hairs starting to come in at his temple. Emily, perched on the top of the pickup, holds up her list triumphantly.

“That’s the last of it!” She cheers, and Billie groans, flopping over next to Daud, all her limbs spread-eagle. “We did it!”

Billie raises her hand for a high-five, and he gives it to her, then ruffles her hair, and he stands and goes over to join Corvo in levering the back of the pickup shut, their daughters running back inside to fight over who gets to shower in which apartment before they leave for Serkonos, and Daud leans into Corvo’s shoulder when the younger man pulls him closer, even though they’re both filthy, sweaty, and smell like shit.

“What are we gonna do when Emily goes off to college?” Corvo says, fingers rubbing the back of Daud’s neck, brushing through the short hairs there. “We’ll be empty nesters.” _We_ , he says, like Daud is Emily’s parent now as much as Corvo is, that they’ll be taking her off to college together just like they are Billie now. “Both our daughters, all grown up.”

“Don’t tell Billie you said that,” Daud says, rather than acknowledge the other thing, the them-together-when-Emily-goes-to-college thing, the their-daughters thing.

“I mean,” Corvo says quietly, the tips of his fingers pressed against Daud’s pulse, “You are...going to be there, right? When Emily goes to college? And before that?”

Daud doesn’t say anything, for a long time. They let the wind blow over their faces, as the sun starts to edge on toward setting. Finally, he leans away from Corvo, props his elbows on the edge of the back of the pickup, looks up at the sky.

“Yeah,” Daud says at last, the wind blowing his sweat-soaked hair around his face, the gel melted with the August heat. He finally looks back at Corvo and smiles, nodding. He feels _right_ here, for the first time in as long as he can remember.

“I think I will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> first: this fic was written in march and was, for various reasons, not posted until now. 
> 
> second: this is a half of an overall two-part fic, the other of which exists...somewhere. it will come out eventually. thats my sisters problem not mine //HIT
> 
> third: daud is an incredibly unreliable narrator, and i love writing the outsider. he is a weird fucking guy.


End file.
